


With a thousand lies and a good disguise

by hereticalvision



Series: You're gonna go far [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Backstory, British Military, Eton, Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-17
Updated: 2011-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereticalvision/pseuds/hereticalvision
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>20 Random Facts about Eames - who isn't English, isn't old money and isn't sure where the forgeries end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With a thousand lies and a good disguise

1\. Eames isn't English. He isn't old money, either, despite his pretensions. He was born in Belfast to a single mother who'd been having an affair with some lecturer at Queen's University which is where, his mother always told him fondly, he must have got his brains from.

2\. He did go to Eton, though. He was ridiculously clever and full scholarships, though rare in the extreme, were available. His uncle Kieran forged his academic references – necessary, because Eames kept getting caught stealing things. His mother was frantic, insisting that he was a good boy, really, and it was only because he was so bored at school. Kieran taught him the first thing about thieving that he never forgot: "Ya better not steal from me ya little bastard or you'll be feeling it in yer arse for weeks!"

3\. His real given name is Eamonn. Eames is what the boys at Eton called him. The upper classes all give one another insanely cutesy nicknames – from his time at Eton he knows a Tibs, a Tarkers, a Quincy and an Ollie. Actually, all right, they called him "Eamesy" but a man's got to draw the line somewhere.

4\. Eton was the first forgery job, really. He wanted to fit in, of course, even though he sort of hated everyone around him. It was easier to hate them for having money and being entitled than it was to start hating his own Irishness – which he didn't dare. Loved his Mam something fierce for a start and wouldn't have her thinking he was ashamed of her. And Uncle Kieran would probably give him a clip around the ear and all. So Eamesy became a jolly hockey sticks sort of bloke, a rugger bugger and a ladies' man who used his powers of sleight to ingratiate himself while deep inside, smart, bored Eamonn kept his mouth closed and his ears open.

5\. 'The Blonde', as the others refer to one of his favourite forgeries, is a homage to a girl he knew when he was sixteen. Her name was Harriet, but everyone called her Harryo. She was somebody's sister and somebody else's girlfriend and she pulled him to her body with a sweaty-palmed urgency that only a teenager can feel. That first time, he came long before he made it inside her but she didn't laugh at him, just kissed his face softly. He still loves her a little for that.

6\. After Eton, Oxford was about as natural as a progression possibly could be. His discipline, though was something of a surprise to those who knew good old Eamesy. "Experimental Psychology?" Tarkers bleated. "Thought you'd go in for Classics!" Eames shrugged. Most of the boys would be going into the family business after they finished studying. He was going to have to make his own way and damned if he wasn't going to do it in something interesting.

7\. Eamonn's mother died when he was nineteen.

8\. It wasn't _fair_ his mind screamed over and over. All the sacrifices she'd had to make for him. He was two years into his degree, he was going to get a job in the City or something and he was going to pay her back for all of it! The troubles had been over for years, so the politicos said. It wasn't fucking fair.

9\. Joining the army had not perhaps been the most measured of responses, but it was in several real senses the making of him. The recruiter had salivated over his grades and flung him straight into the Intelligence Corps. Humint was his speciality. He was good at making people trust him, good at charming them, good at becoming just the person you wanted to confide in. He was good with civilians and prisoners of war. And he never got attached, because something inside him was broken beyond repair.

10\. His first tattoo was the Union Flag on his chest, in a burst of patriotism one week in Thailand. Thailand was a revelation in a number of respects, including the beauteous lady boys, the things some people would do for money, and the fact that Eames was much more flexible about certain realities than he had expected. He could have had a sexual crisis about it, of course, but it seemed much more practical merely to add it to his repertoire of ever-shifting identity.

11\. The SAS was always the goal, once he realised there was a way to reach it – but he almost blew it all during selection by fucking one of the other candidates. Exhausted beyond all measure by the Fan Dance, Eames had been unable to sleep, so much adrenaline pumping through him, his whole body live like an electric wire. He watched the man's lips and eyes in the near darkness of the barracks and felt his own tongue slide out unbidden to moisten his lips. He was furious with himself for getting caught and he let the unit commander bellow at him for what felt like forever, waiting for the axe to fall. Instead he got rapped on the knuckles and felt relieved as all hell that the law had changed just the year before.

12\. When he was told that half of D-squadron was being loaned to the SIS for a special project, he couldn't have known what he was about to see. Dream sharing was like nothing else in the world. The possibilities fascinated him. His background in psychology meant that he was immediately dying to poke around in the subconscious, meet a person's projections, deduce all the things about the subject that they themselves kept hidden. He was the one who pushed for further trials, seeing the applications for espionage. He was the one who kept pushing further.

13\. As far as Eames knows, he was the first forger in the world. The focus had until that point been on recreating the world without rather than shifting the body into something else. There were mirror experiments happening all over the world, of course, but the first time he shifted his appearance into an image of a squad mate's girlfriend, the resulting shock and awe made him wish he could show old Uncle Kieran – he'd come a long way.

14\. Despite the legal position of the British government, it turns out that at a certain point the gay thing stops being a point of indulgence and starts being an offence – and that point is the Major's son. It would only be the first time Eames had to escape from prison; that was considerably easier than stealing the PASIV.

15\. Eames has always been very good at getting people to like him. Making contacts in the underworld wasn't hard, not when he had a couple of Belfast crooks to start him on the path. From the Irish in London to the Irish in New York to the mafia to the high-end thieves, they all liked him and they all put him in touch with their friends. Charm goes a long way – so does a willingness to lose at cards and pay for the drinks. Eventually he was put in touch with a Dom Cobb, and that was when his career begins in earnest.

16\. When he met Cobb for the first time he gave his school nickname because at the very least it was something he knew to answer to. "Like the chair?" was Cobb's response, and Eames looked at him blankly. It is for this reason that he generally doesn't try to portray himself as American – the devil's in the details. Besides, apparently his teeth mark him out as British and while that doesn't have to matter in the dreamscape it means his US passport is one of the ones that doesn't see a lot of action.

17\. Eames has been many people in many dreams. He has been movie stars, old enemies, dead spouses and children, and they have all felt just as real to him as the gambler who can't spell, who enjoys clashing colours, who once let a mark fuck him while he was wearing the skin of a girl far too young for such attention and didn't feel anything at all about it, before, after or during. Eames has been many people, and not one of them has been a good person deep down – not since Eamonn's Mam died. Perhaps not ever.

18\. He sometimes wishes it was, because then maybe he'd stand a chance of fucking Arthur. And he really, really wants to fuck Arthur.

19\. Once he asked Arthur outright why not. Arthur, after all, has been on the receiving end of more consistent attention than anyone Eames has ever tried for in his life. He's flirted, teased, cajoled, outright asked, and he _knows_ Arthur's at the very least attracted. So why not? "Because, Mr Eames," Arthur said quietly, "your whole life is about making people see what they want to in you. You use people's trust in you against them, professionally." Eames desperately wanted to tell Arthur that what they'd have would be different, would be real, but for the first time in years a lie stuck in his throat.

20\. "That's not it," he said to Arthur on a job a few months later, as though picking up a conversation they'd just been having. Arthur looked at him quizzically and Eames elaborated, "It's not that you don't trust me particularly. It's that you can't bear to let anyone behind those walls of yours because it would be something you couldn't control. And you're afraid." Arthur's mouth tightened at the corners and Eames nodded to himself, satisfied. He stood up from where he had been sitting on Arthur's desk, straightened his cuffs and got back to work.


End file.
